Analysts Claim Sandy Bridge Sales Are Slower Than Expected – Is The Chipset Flaw To Blame?

Our very own Gordon Mah Ung may have given Intel’s Sandy Bridge an enthusiastic two thumbs up from a technical stand point, however it appears analysis are preparing to blame the dreaded Cougar Point chipset problem for a lack of consumer adoption. While it’s difficult to find fault in the way Intel handled the problem, it’s safe to say from a marketing stand point it was a train wreck that almost reached an “Antenagate” level of fervor at its peak. The company has since resumed shipments, but analysts for FBR are suggesting that the PC market hasn’t seen the expected uptick in sales promised by Intel after conducting interviews with six of the top tier PC makers.

FBR’s Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger claims that "While notebook demand could improve, and builds could get ratcheted up by June, our contacts suggest Intel's Sandy Bridge products are not stimulating as much end demand as expected, likely impacting AMD, too." Given that Intel has stated publically that they expect Sandy Bridge to account for up to a third of the company’s 2011 revenue, we certainly hope for their sake this trend changes soon.

Let us know in the comments below if you still hold a grudge with Intel over the Cougar Point flaw, or what they could have done differently to help avoid so much negative PR. Some analysts are also speculating that tablets could be chipping away at PC sales, and that the dip has nothing to do with the Sandy Bridge flaw. Either way we won’t know for sure until later in the year when PC makers start releasing quarterly results.

Comments

Most of the software I run can't even keep up with my i5-750 so why even bother? The most demanding software I run is usually games and there's no way I'm dropping that much cash on a new cpu AND mobo when I can run a totally kickass GPU setup with that kind of money.

The simple thing is that the original Nehalems are more than good enough for the vast majority of users.

There's nothing wrong with buying hardware just to need out, but Jesus what kind of software do you people run that switching from an i7 would make that much difference?

Sorry Intel, I love you, it's just that it feels like we're moving too fast.

I'd like to upgrade to a Sandy Bridge processor, but to be honest, I got a system that hangs well enough with the faster systems for far less. At Christmas, Microcenter had a deal with AMD Phenom X6 and the AM3 mobo. It's not the best mobo in the world, but my brother's core i7-920 and mine run neck and neck and mine cost $200 less than his did. The Sandy Bridge would be a decent upgrade, but I can't justify spending $450-500 on parts that aren't going to make my performance jump that much. I'd rather wait until the new SSD's with 500 MB r/w are out in the summer and use one of those to boost performance.

Right on. Honestly, I really don't get all the hoopla over Sandy Bridge. Sure, it's a fast, snappy, crunch anything you through at it, spit it out and laugh probably... but... Really? If you had nothing to compare it to, an AMD Phenom II would appear EXACTLY the same to anyone here (and don't tell me I am crazy or don't know what I'm talking about) The point is performance is all subjective. It only becomes objective when looking at benchmark numbers, and numbers are an abstraction.

I think that's a good point, despite the performance increases, going from 4-core to slightly faster 4-core still feels like a lateral move to some of us consumers. Plus, I'm just confused as to why they would include an integrated graphics chip when any of us who would buy a perofrmance cpu would just have our own standalone card anyway. Makes me wonder how much cheaper the cpu would be if it was just a cpu, and the prices of those motherboards look intimidating. I'm still waiting to see how Ivy Bridge and Bulldozer will do, for now my 4 core AMD Phenom 940 does everything I need it to.

I'm with you. Those motherboard prices really do look intimidating. I'm aching to replace my 8+ year old computer, but I'm content at the moment with using my sister's 1 year old computer. It does what I want for now. I'm also waiting to see how Ivy Bridge and Bulldozer plays out.

Other than looking at benchmarks I doubt if anybody could actually tell the difference between the Sandy Bridge, Nahalem, Lynnfield cores. Seriously I look at the real world performance on my friends AMD Athlon II 250 vs my Intel i7 875K, and don't see much difference. Personally I rather spend money on more robust/reliable storage solutions, better GPU, bigger monitor...etc

I bought mine 2 days ago (2600K) for $279.99 at Microcenter in Westbury. (gotta LOVE the unadvertised sales...) I dropped it into a MSI P67A-GD65 Mobo, threw in a GTX 570, 8 gig Corsair Vengence mem, a Corsair H70 and it screams!

These motherboard companies got hosed on the chipset replacement by Intel (althought Intel may make good), but in any case, we are seeing huge increases in MB prices. I saw 2 articles on Max PC in the last week - one on MB, one on HDD (and memory is climbing) - so why would anyone buy a PC right now?

ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc need to lower their prices - they are pricing MBs higher than the chips. I was considering a 2500k to replace my (don't laugh) E7200, but now, I may go a different way.

I am one that usually rebuilds every two years with the latest but this time I really see no need to change out my OCed i7920. Instead I upgraded from a GTX 285 to two GTX 580's. If the socket had stayed the same and the new Sandy Bridge chip were a six core I would have been tempted but I see no reason to go from a four core i7 at 3.8 Ghz to a four core Sandy Bridge. I have no need for the built in graphics chip so I find myself just not really interested. I am upgrading all other componnents and keeping my MObo and CPU this time. The flaw really had nothing to do with it for me.

I hate to break it to all you folks who have NOT upgraded to an o/c Sandy Bridge yet, but Sandy bridge is that much better. Noticeably faster, not just "specs better". Better like in "Whoa, that was snappy!" when using. Better than I would have imagined it to be.

Here is an apples to apples comparison...

I rebuilt my sons old computer to a o/c Sandy bridge and I love it (gave him a new sabertooth system). When the "flaw" came around, I tore the mobo out and moved back to my o/c i7 920 rig. I noticed the difference IMMEDIATELY. The i7 system was just pokey, taking longer to boot, to load programs, slow web surfing, and slower to download stuff. Same SSD drive and hard drive, same operating system, same optical drives . Hell, I just moved my drives back and forth and Win7 64bit figured out how to boot and I just had to load in the right drivers.

ON PAPER, the two systems look very close, but the difference became obvious when I was able to quickly switch from one to the other. I immediately rebuilt my Sandy Bridge machine and waitied for the replacement mobo. I did not want to be without it. The i7 rig is sitting in a chair right next to me, unused.

I have an e5200 overlcocked to 4ghz on air. I haven't exactly felt the need to upgrade yet. I dont do any hardcore gaming or video encoding, but wanted to upgrade purely because I had the dough from my tax return. For me, the trouble has been Newegg doesn't have the board I want. I was gonna give an Asrock board a shot, but I try to stick with Asus. They have MSI boards, but I prefer not to go that route even though the GD65 model has great reviews.

how about the LGA 1156 and the 1366 I7s are already overkill, why waist the money to upgrade now, hell even the core 2s and quads and hang with gaming and everyday tasks, Im a big tech junkie and except for benchmarks there is no reason to upgrade to the sandybridge

Great comments everyone! I'm the type of person who prefers to wait and see how "new" tech works out before jumping on the bandwagon. I'd read such great reviews about Sandy Bridge that I was tempted to buy one, then the chipset problem revealed itself. I became hesitate and started thinking about the new AMD chips. Eventually I convinced myself to wait and see what AMD has to offer later this year, in comparison to Sandy Bridge. I'm hoping for a pricing war between Intel and AMD later this year. That would help with the cost of building a new rig for me later this year/early next.

I have a feeling "uncertainty" surrounding the economy, jobs, world unrest, etc are also a factors in the low sales figures. Throwing this out for discussion: Gas prices are much higher now then the same period last year as well as the cost of food... and the prices continue to go higher. Wonder when they will stabilize. Such "little" things might make people think twice about spending on computer upgrades.

I read somewhere that E, extreme?, intel chips are coming out later this year? I don' tknow much about them... 6 cores? 4 cores?

How about slow sales due to a bad economy where you need to stretch every inflated dollar and every purchase must be carefully considered?

I myself was shopping for a cpu for my new build. Guess what? I purchased a 6 core 1100T for less than $220.00. Sandy Bridge is most likely premium priced as is the usual paradigm with Intel. No thanks.

These are my personal reasons for not buying one, but I think they might apply to others as well. First off is the economy, as much as we hate hearing that word, the fact is I am unemployed due to a lay off caused by a lack of construction jobs, and I'm not about to spend hundreds on pc parts over my mortgage. Second is that it's a real pain in the ass that every year there is a new intel chip that requires a new cpu socket type, so not only do you have to buy an expensive cpu, but a mobo as well. Third intel makes nice chips and all, but why do I want to spend a few hundred extra on one part of a pc (plus new board) that could be put to something more useful like GPUs or HDDs, when I could get a top of the line proc from amd for a fraction of the cost and buy those other parts, and most times you would never even notice the gains from their processors to justify the added cost. Basically intel needs to lower their prices, make a more universal socket architecture and keep it, and not expect towering profits in a downed economy. Yeah there was an initial flaw and all, but they stepped up to their problem and confronted it at a loss, so if I was able to buy a chip I wouldn't be worried about any defects.

I think the reason Sandy Bridge sales have been down is because there aren't any six or eight core options yet. I have a hard time justifying a jump from a 4 core nehalem to a 4 core sandy bridge. It would be easier if they could but out a budget 6 core sandy bridge part. In the meantime, I'm content on spending my money on improving my graphics card, memory and storage options

I thought Intel handled it about as well as they possibly could have. Personally, I think it's the lousy economy as much as anything. There will also be a significant percentage of people who want to wait a little while and see how the revised boards are doing before they jump in.

The only problem I've had with Sandy Bridge is that the motherboard I ordered is unavailable. I bought memory and a 2600k CPU as well as an Asus P8P67 Pro which has been on backorder for two weeks and I have not been able to find it anywhere else.

I don't know if this is the case with other motherboards but part of the slow sales could be that there is low availability, not to mention prices keep going up.

The issue is OFFICIALLYCOMPLETELY RESOLVED. I bought an Asus board before the announcement and got it replaced recently (great job Newegg!!) with the new B3 revision, which should fix the issue properly, and fully function with ALL SATA PORTS.

BUT, because some of us got stuck with bad boards, and MFRs have to deal with replacing all the bad boards, all of that time wasted makes the B3 boards sold out almost everywhere. Newegg said that they are using the boards as they come in to issue replacements to customers with defective boards in order of original purchase. Translation: You won't be able to buy a new board until all the bad boards are replaced. The more popular ones will obviously take longer to get. I tried to buy another board on Newegg and most are still sold out (Even if not sold out on the list, just try 'add to cart' and its sold out)

In short - You can't buy a board if it's sold out! Wait a month or two, let the stores re-advertise Sandy Bridge (They all pulled the ads when the defect came out) and give it a chance to sell. The performance really is terrific. Just make sure to get the B3 Revision of the chipset!

It didn't bother me at all, those things happen time from time. For me, I just bought a i7 860 last year and I don't upgrade too often, so unless I some how stumble upon a lot of cash, I will probably be choosing from the next generation when the time comes. I know the sandy bridge chips are a major update, but when you have a i7 that works pretty well, it doesn't seem major enough

It was safe to order them even before the issue was resolved it might have impacted 5% of the market if that. The problem was with sata channels 3,4,5,6,7 etc. and didn't effect the SATA 6gb/s ports at all, and if the motherboard had a third party controller (like a lot do) then there shouldn't have been any problem. But yes the issue is fixed for all the parts now.